Happy New Year!!!

Ok this has to be the year my hubby comes home to me! We crossed many milestones in the process in 2012 and faced delays as well.

Approval from Homeland Security came on August 23rd, also my younger daughter's wedding day, 4 months later than normal. If approval had come in late April hubby would have been here for Christmas and New Year's. I flew to Kosovo the end of September with paperwork in hand. Hubby signed the papers and I brought them back home with me to hand over to the lawyer.

Amazingly the lawyer couldn't find his police certificate which I brought home and gave to her. She wouldn't let me look through the stack of papers because it was 6 inches thick. So the only thing we could do was get another. Hubby had it done and in the mail 2 days later. We were lucky, it only took 2 weeks to arrive.

The papers were then sent to the National Visa Center, one year to the date of the opening of our case at the USCIS. Then I got an email from them asking for new passport-type photos. The email said the Beneficiary's name and case # must be written on the back. OMG did the lawyer not do that?!? Well, she claims she did. Thankfully hubby had a digital photo and had promptly emailed it to me within minutes. The next day, with flash drive in hand, I got the photos printed and drove them out to the lawyer.

So now we are hoping to get "case complete" status this month, and hubby's visa interview appointment. I heard it can take a month or two to get the appointment, depending on how busy they are at the embassy. I'm still thinking hubby might have his interview in late February and be here in March, a full 2 years after we first got serious.

So are you wondering, is this normal? Pretty much. On average it takes a year. Part of the reason is the sheer volume of applications they must process every month. They issue 35,000 visas every month. Not all of those are family based. There are many types of visas. If you or anyone you know needs help with visas the very best site on the internet is www.visajourney.com. If I had known about them before I would not have needed the lawyer.

On with the rest of our journey.....